Christmas Day at our house

We drove home on Christmas Day after retrieving all our beef from Grandma and Grandpa's house and when we got home, we had our Christmas together. The kids were so excited to see that Santa had indeed visited our house while we were gone and had left them full stockings and presents under the tree. He even ate the cookies and drank the milk we'd left him! They were sad, though, to see that Elfie Christmas Kelly, our Elf on the Shelf, had gone back to the North Pole like he does every Christmas Eve not to return again until next December. We turned on some Christmas music and opened our gifts before turning in to sleep after a fun and tiring celebration of Christmas 2011!

Christmas Day

On Christmas Day, we celebrated with the Lampert side of the family at mom and dad's. We mixed it up this year and ate lunch first, and opened presents after the feast. We had yummy prime rib! ;) Mom's Christmas table and all of her trees and decorations looked so pretty. While the kids were waiting for Santa to make his annual visit to hand out presents from his bag, they sang Christmas songs together and were like a cute little choir. After Santa left, the kids were full throttle opening gifts! Mom and I couldn't hand them out fast enough. After gift opening, we had dessert and everybody sang "Happy Birthday to Jesus" and blew out candles on a cake mom had made for it. It was a fun day of food and family.

Christmas Eve

We celebrated Christmas Eve at Grandma and Grandpa Bursley's house in Battle Creek. Grandma told me that they've been hosting it now for 63 years! Wow! We had 31 family members there, the group has just kept on growing with the latest addition of Brian and Jamie's baby boy, Eli this year. This year the kids played downstairs together quite a bit before present opening time and the adults all noticed how quiet it was upstairs. There must've been actual conversation going on between us! It was cute watching all the kids open their gifts and play so nicely together. They had a kids' table this year that all the kids enjoyed. There's also a pic of Grandpa joking around wearing one of Grandma's stylish hats. He reminded us of an English Bobby too! Lookin' good Grandpa!

Christmas 2011

This year we celebrated Christmas with the Boyle's on the Thursday before Christmas at our house, then Jim and Mary went with us to "Christmas Eve" service at our church before we left for Battle Creek the next morning. The kids get more and more excited about Christmas each year. They were so excited that they got to open up presents a couple days before Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa Boyle, Uncle Jim, Aunt Rachel and Lily. I introduced Pat's mom to Amazon this year (sorry Jim!) and the kids always put their wish lists online, so Ryan's funny saying each time he opened a present was an amazed, "This was on my wish list!!" (it was funnier in person, and also when he would say, "hey...this wasn't on my wish list?!"). This was also one of the first times that Hannah actually was happy and excited to get clothes for Christmas-ha! Here are a couple of pics... 

Images of Christmas Prep

Here are some images of our getting ready for Christmas this year, from the addition of "Elfie Christmas" the Elf on the Shelf, to the boys' preschool party and program, to our Christmas card, house decorations, and Christmas baking and gifting...

Ryan in class for their Christmas Party

Josh in class, Ryan is behind him at the blue table

"Elfie Christmas"

Ryan and Josh on stage at their preschool Christmas program

Hannah, her doll Emma, and her friend Emma

See the blond girl between R & J? She's Sarah, their girlfriend!